the formation of prenucleation clusters with dimen-sions of 0.6to 1.1nm (step 0).In analogy to the chemistry of calcium phosphate (31),we consider them to be the smallest stable agglomerates of CaCO 3present from the beginning of the reaction.Aggregation of these clusters in solution leads to the nucleation of ACC nanoparticles with a size distri-bution centered around 30nm (step 1).Association of these particles with the template surface initiates the growth of ACC (step 2),using the nanoparticles in their neighborhood as feedstock.Next,randomly oriented nanocrystalline domains are formed inside the otherwise amorphous particles (steps 3and 4).On the basis of the model of Zhang et al .(23),we expect these domains to be unstable and in equi-librium with the amorphous phase.In the last steps,the orientation that is stabilized through the inter-action with the monolayer becomes dominant (step 5)and develops into a single crystal (step 6).This single crystal probably grows by the further addition and incorporation of ions and clusters from solution.The initial experiments of Mann and co-workers showed that the present system could produce cal-cite (11.0)or vaterite (00.1)depending on the pre-cise conditions (16,32).Later,it was demonstrated that rapid CO 2evaporation favors the kinetic product,vaterite (21,22),whereas lower evaporation rates lead to the calcitic form (21).These results are confirmed by our finding of (00.1)oriented vaterite in the present work (i.e.,in a fast-outgassing thin film)and the formation of (11.0)oriented calcite in crystallization dishes (fig.S7)(15)from which CO 2outgassing is slower.Moreover,the observation of randomly oriented vaterite crystals also puts in perspective the synchrotron x-ray scattering exper-iments that showed the formation of randomly oriented crystals from the same system (22).The nanoscopic prenucleation clusters that we visualized are the smallest stable form of CaCO 3and are likely the building blocks of the amorphous precursor particles observed in biomineralization;such particles are also observed in many synthetic systems and are not restricted to calcium carbonate (13,31).As a consequence of their aggregation,ACC nucleates in solution and subsequently assembles at the template.There,it is present as a temporarily stabilized but transient phase that mediates the trans-fer of information from the template to the mineral phase.This occurs through the selective stabiliza-tion of only one of the orientations present,leading to the development of a single crystal.References and Notes1.H.A.Lowenstam,S.Weiner,On Biomineralization (Oxford Univ.Press,New York,1989).2.M.E.Davis,Science 305,480(2004).3.B.L.Smith et al .,Nature 399,761(1999).4.J.Aizenberg et al .,Science 309,275(2005).5.J.R.Young,J.M.Didimus,P.R.Bown,B.Prins,S.Mann,Nature 356,516(1992).6.L.Addadi,D.Joester,F.Nudelman,S.Weiner,Chem.Eur.J.12,980(2006).7.N.A.J.M.Sommerdijk,G.de With,Chem.Rev.108,4499(2008).8.M.Volmer,Kinetik der Phasenbildung (Steinkopff,Dresden,1939).9.Y.Politi,T.Arad,E.Klein,S.Weiner,L.Addadi,Science 306,1161(2004).10.E.Beniash,J.Aizenberg,L.Addadi,S.Weiner,Proc.R.Soc.London Ser.B 264,461(1997).11.B.P.Pichon,P.H.H.Bomans,P.M.Frederik,N.A.J.M.Sommerdijk,J.Am.Chem.Soc.130,4034(2008).12.J.R.I.Lee et al .,J.Am.Chem.Soc.129,10370(2007).13.D.Gebauer,A.Völkel,H.Cölfen,Science 322,1819(2008).14.C.L.Freeman,J.H.Harding,D.M.Duffy,Langmuir 24,9607(2008).15.See supporting material on Science Online.16.S.Mann,B.R.Heywood,S.Rajam,J.D.Birchall,Nature334,692(1988).17.S.Nickell,C.Kofler,A.P.Leis,W.Baumeister,Nat.Rev.Mol.Cell Biol.7,225(2006).18.The sedimentation coefficient s is defined as the velocityv t of the particle per unit gravitational acceleration(centrifugal acceleration:w 2r ,where w is angular velocity and r is the radial distance to the rotation axis).19.F.M.Michel et al .,Chem.Mater.20,4720(2008).20.D.Quigley,P.M.Rodger,J.Chem.Phys.128,221101(2008).21.E.Loste,E.Diaz-Marti,A.Zarbakhsh,F.C.Meldrum,Langmuir 19,2830(2003).22.E.DiMasi,M.J.Olszta,V.M.Patel,L.B.Gower,CrystEngComm 5,346(2003).23.T.H.Zhang,X.Y.Liu,J.Am.Chem.Soc.129,13520(2007).24.Y.Politi et al .,Adv.Funct.Mater.16,1289(2006)m,J.M.Charnock,A.Lennie,F.C.Meldrum,CrystEngComm 9,1226(2007).26.J.Aizenberg,D.A.Muller,J.L.Grazul,D.R.Hamann,Science 299,1205(2003).27.R.Tang et al .,Angew.Chem.Int.Ed.43,2697(2004).28.G.Luquet,F.Marin,C.R.Palevol 3,515(2004).29.L.Brecevic,A.E.Nielsen,J.Cryst.Growth 98,504(1989).30.J.J.J.M.Donners,B.R.Heywood,E.W.Meijer,R.J.M.Nolte,N.A.J.M.Sommerdijk,Chem.Eur.J.8,2561(2002).31.A.S.Posner,F.Betts,Acc.Chem.Res.8,273(1975).32.S.Rajam et al .,J.Chem.Soc.Faraday Trans.87,727(1991).33.Supported by the European Community (project codeNMP4-CT-2006-033277)and the NetherlandsOrganization for Scientific Research (NWO).We thank A.Völkel and H.Cölfen for performing and evaluating the ultracentrifugation measurements;D.Gebauer and A.Verch for time-dependent solution composition determination of the mineralization solutions;F.L.Boogaard,E.J.Creusen,J.J.van Roosmalen,and P.Moeskops for their contribution to the 3Dreconstructions of the tomograms;and P.T.K.Chin for providing the CdSe nanorods.Supporting Online Material/cgi/content/full/323/5920/1455/DC1Materials and Methods SOM Text Table S1Figs.S1to S75December 2008;accepted 30January 200910.1126/science.1169434Self-Repairing Oxetane-Substituted Chitosan Polyurethane NetworksBiswajit Ghosh and Marek W.Urban *Polyurethanes have many properties that qualify them as high-performance polymeric materials,but they still suffer from mechanical damage.We report the development of polyurethane networks that exhibit self-repairing characteristics upon exposure to ultraviolet light.The network consists of an oxetane-substituted chitosan precursor incorporated into a two-component polyurethane.Upon mechanical damage of the network,four-member oxetane rings open to create two reactive ends.When exposed to ultraviolet light,chitosan chain scission occurs,which forms crosslinks with the reactive oxetane ends,thus repairing the network.These materials are capable of repairing themselves in less than an hour and can be used in many coatings applications,ranging from transportation to packaging or fashion and biomedical industries.When a hard or sharp object hits a ve-hicle,it is likely that it will leave a scratch,and for this reason the auto-motive industry looks for coatings with high scratch resistance.Because of their hardness and elasticity,polyurethanes exhibit good scratch re-sistance but can still suffer from mechanical dam-age.An ideal automotive coating would mend itself while a vehicle is driven.To heal mechan-ical damage in plants,suberin,tannins,phenols,or nitric oxide are activated to prevent further lesions (1–3),whereas in a human skin,the outer flow of blood cells is arrested by the crosslink network of fibrin,giving rise to wound-healing (4,5).Concentration gradients or stratification in living organisms inspired the development of spa-tially heterogeneous remendable polymers (6,7),composites containing micro-encapsulated spheres(8–11),encapsulated fibers (12–14),reversible cross-linking (15,16),and microvascular networks (17).One example is epoxy matrices containing a glass hollow fiber filled with a monomer and an initiator with the “bleeding ”ability to heal poly-mer networks during crack formation (12).A sim-ilar phenomenon was used in another approach,in which a micro-encapsulated dicyclopentadiene monomer was introduced in a catalyst-embedded polymer matrix,which healed the crack near the ring opening of the monomer (8–11).Reversibil-ity of Diels-Alder reactions resulted in another approach to thermally repair damaged areas,and approach using malemide-furan adducts (15,16).Mimicking of microvascular structures (17),water-responsive expandable gels (7),and formation of supramolecular assemblies (18)are other ave-nues of remendability.This study departs from previous approaches and reports the development of heterogeneousSchool of Polymers and High Performance Materials,Shelby F.Thames Polymer Science Research Center,The University of Southern Mississippi,Hattiesburg,MS 39406,USA.*To whom correspondence should be addressed.E-mail:marek.urban@13MARCH 2009VOL 323SCIENCE1458REPORTSpolyurethane (PUR)networks based on oxetane-substituted derivative of chitosan (OXE-CHI),which upon reaction with hexamethylene diiso-cyante (HDI)and polyethylene glycol (PEG)(19)form heterogeneous OXE-CHI-PUR net-works.The choice of these components was driven by their ability to serve specific functions;PUR networks provide desirable heterogeneity through polyurethane and polyurea components,and OXE-CHI provides the cleavage of a con-strained four-membered ring (OXE)and ultra-violet (UV)sensitivity through CHI,the latter being a product of deacetylation of chitin,which is the structural element of exoskeletons of crus-taceans (e.g.,crabs and shrimp)occurring in abun-dance in nature.Figure 1illustrates a two-step reaction sequence leading to the OXE-CHI-PUR formation (20).The first step in this investigation was the synthesis of OXE-CHI,in which the pri-mary alcohol of CHI was reacted with chloro-methyl of OXE (21).An OXE ring was reacted to the C 6position of the chitosan molecule,which is confirmed by infrared (IR),Raman,and 13C-NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance)spectroscopy (20)(figs.S1,S2,and S3,respectively).The second step illustrates the reactions leading to the in-corporation of OXE-CHI into trifunctional HDI in the presence of PEG (1:1.4and 1:1.33molar ratios),confirmed by IR and 13C-NMR spectros-copy (20)(figs.S4and S5,respectively).Networks were allowed to crosslink under ambient conditions to form solid films and then were mechanically damaged by creating a scratch.Figure 2A1illustrates a mechanical damage of OXE-CHI-PUR films.When the damaged area is exposed to a 120W fluorescent UV lamp at 302nm wavelength of light for 15(Fig.2A2)and 30(Fig.2A3)min,the damaged area vanishes.The upper portion of Fig.2illustrates IR images of the damaged area,whereas the lower part il-lustrates optical images.Also,IR images of the damaged area exhibit chemical changes resulting from the repair and are shown in figs.S8and S9.A series of controlled experiments were conducted on specimens prepared by varying molar ratios of OXE-CHI with respect to the PUR content (table S1).Optical images shown in Fig.3,A to D,illustrate the results of the experiments conducted under the same UV exposure conditions (0,15,and 30min)conducted on the specimens listed in table S1.These experiments illustrate that the presence of OXE-CHI precursor is the key factor respon-sible for remendability of the network (Figs.2and 3).Neither PUR nor CHI-PUR alone (table S1,specimens A and B)is able to repair the mechanical damage,whereas the presence of co-valently bonded OXE-CHI (table S1,specimens C and D)entities facilitates the self-healingprocess.Fig.1.Synthetic steps involved in the formation of OXE-CHI.1,Reactions of OXE with CHI,leading to the formation of OXE-CHI precursor;2,Reactions of OXE-CHI with HDI and PEG,leading to formations of remendable OXE-CHI-PURnetwork.Fig.2.IR (upper )and optical (lower )images of OXE-CHI-PUR networks recorded as a UV exposure time.A1,0min;A2,15min;A3,30min.(SOM provides details regarding spectroscopic changes detected by IR imaging.)SCIENCEVOL 32313MARCH 20091459REPORTSTable S1also shows the damage width as a function of UV exposure evaluations conducted on the specimens shown in Fig.3.The rate of repair for networks containing half the OXE-CHI pre-cursor concentration is also reduced.Although a cut is a local event at micrometer or smaller scales,the actual cleavage is a molecular-level event.To determine the mechanism of repair and to follow molecular events in the damaged area,we used localized micro-attenuated total reflectance (A TR)Fourier transform IR (FTIR)spectroscopy (22)and internal reflection IR imaging (IRIRI)(23).As shown in figs.S6and S7,the loss of urea and ether linkages of CHI (circled in Fig.1)containing OXE rings results from the UV light exposure of damaged surface areas responsible for repairing.In these experiments,the repair process uses UV lightto recombine free radicals to form crosslinks.In the 280to 400nm range,a fluorescent UV lamp gen-erates approximately 0.3W/m 2per nm power den-sity,whereas the Sun gives off about 0.25W/m 2per nm (24).Thus,the time frames for repair of the Sun exposure are very similar,although the ener-gy density changes as a function of the wavelength of radiation for both sources vary somewhat.As a result of stronger Sun radiation during the summer months in the southern United States,the repair process will be about 3to 4times as fast compared with the equivalent exposure in the northern United States,but for the winter months this difference will be negligible (25).Because crosslinking reactions are not moisture sensitive,dry or humid climate con-ditions will not affect the repair process.The above networks exhibit the ability to self-repair upon expo-sure to UV light,but if exactly the same previously repaired spot is damaged again,the ability for further repair may be limited by the thermosetting character-istics of these networks.We developed a new generation of thermoset-ting polymers that are of considerable technical and commercial importance.The use of the UV portion of the electromagnetic radiation for re-pairing mechanical damages in coatings offers an ambient temperature approach to self-healing —critical in a number of applications and tech-nologies that do not require the placement of other,often elaborate,network components —that is controlled by the chemistries and morphol-ogies of polymer networks.References and Notes1.J.Leon,E.Rojo,J.J.Sanchez-Serrano,J.Exp.Bot.52,1(2001).2.R.F.Diegelmann,M.C.Evans,Front.Biosci.9,283(2004).3.R.Paris,mattina,C.A.Casalongue,Plant Physiol.Biochem.45,80(2007).4.G.Henry,W.Li,W.Garner,D.T.Woodley,Lancet 361,574(2003).5.K.G.Mann,K.Brummel-Ziedins,T.Orefo,S.Butenas,Blood Cells Mol.Dis.36,108(2006).6.P.Sonntag et al .,Nat.Mater.3,311(2004).7.K.Nagaya,S.Ikai,M.Chiba,X.Chao,JSME Int.J.Ser.C 49,379(2006).8.S.R.White et al .,Nature 409,794(2001).9.E.N.Brown,M.R.Kessler,N.R.Sottos,S.R.White,J.Microencapsul.20,719(2003).10.E.N.Brown,S.R.White,N.R.Sottos,J.Mater.Sci.39,1703(2004).11.M.R.Kessler,N.R.Sottos,S.R.White,Composites Part A34,743(2003).12.J.W.C.Pang,I.P.Bond,Compos.Sci.Technol.65,1791(2005).13.J.W.C.Pang,I.P.Bond,Composites Part A 36,183(2005).14.S.R.Trask,H.R.Williams,I.P.Bond,Bioinspir.Biomim.2,P1(2007).15.X.Chen et al .,Science 295,1698(2002).16.R.Gheneim,C.Perez-Berumen,A.Gandini,Macromolecules 35,7246(2002).17.S.K.Toohey,N.R.Sottos,J.A.Lewis,J.S.Moore,S.R.White,Nat.Mater.6,581(2007).18.P.Cordier,F.Tournilhac,C.Soulie-Ziakovic,L.Leiber,Nat.Lett.451,977(2008).19.D.B.Otts,M.W.Urban,Polymer (Guildf.)46,2699(2005).20.Materials and methods and additional data are availableas supporting material on Science Online.21.Y.Wan,K.A.M.Creber,B.Peppley,V.T.Bui,J.Polym.Sci.Part B Polym.Phys 42,1379(2004).22.M.W.Urban,Attenuated Total Reflectance Spectroscopyof Polymers;Theory and Applications (American Chemical Society and Oxford University Press,Washington,DC,1996)23.D.Otts,P.Zhang,M.W.Urban,Langmuir 18,6473(2002).24.Average Optimum Direct Global Radiation,Miami,FL,USA;Atlas Material Testing Technology;.25.National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration,2008;/products/stratosphere/uv_index/gif_files/spectrum.gif ().26.These studies were primarily supported by the NationalScience Foundation MRSEC under DMR 0213883and the Materials Research Instrumentation (MRI)Program under DMR 0215873.We thank the Mississippi Division of Marine Resources for partial support.Supporting Online Material/cgi/content/full/323/5920/1458/DC1Materials and Methods SOM TextFigs.S1to S10Table S1References20October 2008;accepted 29January 200910.1126/science.1167391Fig.3.Optical images of mechanically damaged films:PUR (A1,A2,and A3are images after exposure for 0,15,and 30min to UV radiation;HDI/PEG/CHI =1:1.5:0);CHI-PUR (B1,B2,and B3are images after exposure for 0,15,and 30min to UV radiation;HDI/PEG/CHI =1:1.4:0.57×10−4);OXE-CHI-PUR (C1,C2,and C3are images after exposure for 0,15,and 30min to UV radiation;HDI/PEG/OXE-CHI =1:1.4:0.57×10−4);OXE-CHI-PUR (D1,D2,and D3are images after exposure for 0,15,and 30min to UV radiation;HDI/PEG/OXE-CHI =1:1.33:1.17×10−4).13MARCH 2009VOL 323SCIENCE1460REPORTS。